In other news, the environmental group Greenpeace continued with its protests against Japanese whaling activities Wednesday. In Germany, activists with the group dumped the body of a dead finback whale in front of the Japanase embassy in Berlin.

• Greenpeace’s Stefanie Werner : “Greenpeace is protesting here today with this dead finback because we want the Japanese to immediately stop their bloody whaling. Greenpeace wants the whaling commission to become a whale protection commission and for it to become a control organ. What’s most important to us though is the demand that no more whales are killed for research purposes.”

The finback whale was transported on a flatback truck after it was found stranded off the coast of Germany’s Baltic Sea Saturday. Japan agreed to an international moratorium on commercial whaling in 1986 but resumed what it called a research program one year later. Greenpeace alleges the research program has been a guise for continued commercial whaling.